A/N: Okay, so one, sorry for the wait, I had surgery and the recovery time was longer than I had anticipated. Two, my boyfriend has finally started reading Game of Thrones so that's super exciting, and I finally have someone to fangirl with. He's quickly realizing just how much of a fan I am… Anyway, as I was reading it to him last night while he was driving, I got to thinking about how awesome Arya's storyline gets by the fourth and fifth books, and I decided to write this. It's basically just a brief look at the different identities she's taken throughout the series, but in a modern setting. Plus Jaqen. I hope you like it.

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to George R. R. Martin.

Rating: M for occasional strong language.

"So...who are you?"

The young woman across from him didn't respond right away, just glaring at him with heavily lined grey eyes, a scowl tugging down the corners of her dark lips. He could see her foot tapping rhythmically against the carpet and her fingers drummed in a steady pattern on the arm of the couch. She seemed distracted, and her free hand kept creeping to the pocket of her leather jacket before moving back to her lap.

He lifted his pen and made a note at the top of his legal pad. She's a smoker.

"I'll start. My name is Dr. H'ghar. I've been working here for—"

"I don't give a fuck," she snapped impatiently, gnawing on a thumbnail. "And what do you care who I am? I'm no one important. You just want my sister's money."

He sat calmly, unperturbed by her outburst. At least she had spoken. And sooner than he had thought she would too.

"So it's your sister who sent you here."

She snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. "Yeah. You should know that. She paid with a credit card. Dear, sweet, perfect, beautiful, successful Sansa Clegane can't stand having such a disappointment of a little sister so what does she do when we're finally reunited after all these years? Sends me to a fucking shrink. Says "it's what I need"." She snorted again and gave him a withering glare. "Bullshit."

Jaqen met her gaze for a moment before turning back to the paper on his lap. Reunited?

"You know what doctor client privilege is, don't you?"

She raised her eyebrows and nodded, looking at him as if he were two years old. "Doesn't everybody?"

He ignored the question and continued. "Your sister may be paying for your sessions, but she has no right to know what happens during them. We could sit in complete silence for the next three months and she would never have to know."

She relaxed a bit at that, but still eyed him warily. "Yeah, but wouldn't that go against your morals or something? Knowing that you weren't giving me any help?"

His expression remained blank. "I didn't think you thought I could give you any help."

Just as quickly, the distrust returned and she poked a finger in his direction. "You're tricky aren't you? Well, I won't fall for any of your psychobabble games. I've gotta pee."

With that, she shouldered her way out of the room and Jaqen sighed, glancing at the watch on his wrist. It had only been five minutes and she was already running away to smoke. Heavily addicted. Probably started as a minor.

Lifting one of his legs to rest across the opposite knee, he folded his hands in his lap and waited patiently until she came storming back in, reeking of cheap cigarette smoke.

"How long have you been smoking?"

She recoiled as if she'd been slapped, but at least had the decency to look ashamed. "Since the accident."

Accident?

He nodded as if he knew what she was referring to, unwilling to push her further. She settled back on the couch across from him and picked at the fraying upholstery.

"You're not American, are you?"

As he had expected, she shifts the line of questioning toward him. For the moment, he decided to indulge her. "No. I was born and raised in Germany. I moved to the United States as a teenager." She nodded, looking more than disinterested in his answer as her eyes took in the walls of the room.

"I could tell by your accent."

"Yes, so I assumed." He said it a bit more drily than he had intended, but she flashed him a brief smirk at the display of sarcasm. Perhaps they had more in common than either of them had realized.

She fell silent after that and he busied himself with doodling absently on his legal pad, enjoying the looks she gave him occasionally as his pen continued to move. He could tell that she wanted to ask him what he was writing, but she restrained, and by the time the hour was over, not another word has been spoken. It seemed as though she'd taken his suggestion for spending their sessions in silence.

She was as aware of the time as he was, so when the minute hand crosses the twelve she was on her feet and out the door, ignoring his bland, "I'll see you tomorrow, miss."

"Do you really not know who I am?"

It had been three weeks, and after spending their time in silence or discussing things that had no pertinence to his treatment of her, she had opened up a bit more. At the very least she was comfortable with him as an acquaintance, even if not yet as her psychiatrist.

Of course, he knew who she was. The pretty, concerned young woman who had come to him seeking his help with her little sister had spoken the name Arya, so yes. He knew her name, but even then not a last one. Clegane was the sister's married name.

"Your sister told me your name, but aside from that, no." Deciding that his dry sense of humor may come in handy in helping her to actually tell him about herself he added, "I've just been calling you 'the difficult one' in my head for the past three weeks."

She laughed at that as he had hoped she would and a small smile stayed on her lips as she looked at him. "That sounds about right."

He nodded and resettled the notepad on his lap, moving his pen to the paper. "I know quite a bit about that girl. Why don't you tell me about Arya?"

She tensed slightly at the mention of her name then relaxed again with a heavy sigh. "Arya. I haven't been Arya for a long time."

"Who have you been then?"

The young woman gave a one-shouldered shrug and absently pushed her hair back from her forehead. "Arry, Nan, Cat, Beth…those are the names that lasted for more than a night."

He raised his eyebrows, unsure of exactly what to write before simply copying down her words. Arry, Nan, Cat, Beth.

"Tell me about Arry." She bristled at the direct command and he sighed before adding, "If you'd like."

A few minutes passed in silence before she crossed her arms over her chest and looked out the window. "Arry...umm...was what he used to call me, when we were together."

"Was this a friend of yours?"

She nodded silently, chewing on her bottom lip.

"A boyfriend?"

At that, she sighed again and turned to look at him. "Yes. No. He was more than that, at least I thought he was."

Jaqen watched her in silence. Things could have been entering dangerous territory and he wasn't willing to push her and get her to shut him out again.

Finally, she spoke again, her voice quiet. "I loved him. We were both young, but I really did. I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I...I gave myself to him, and told him how I felt and he..." she laughed sardonically and shrugged. "Didn't feel the same way. He was everything to me, and I guess that was my mistake. I should've known that I would just end up getting hurt."

He took a moment to write down the key points of her story before gently prompting her to continue. "Perhaps, but if you can talk about it, it seems that you've recovered."

She shrugged again, looking defeated. "Does anyone ever really recover from their first real heartbreak?" When he didn't answer, she kept talking. "But yeah, I can talk about it now. I haven't, but I guess it kinda feels good to let that off my chest." She flashed him a wry grin. "I guess you may actually be good at this shrink shit."

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips and he looked at her in amusement. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Having actually made progress, he wasn't about to lose the connection they had made and spent the rest of the session chatting with her about the new Italian restaurant that had opened just down the street. It was a safe conversation, and she was relaxed enough by the end of the hour that he felt confident she would continue to share her story, given time.

"What about Nan?"

She kicked her feet up onto the coffee table between them and laced her hands behind her head. "Nan. Short for Nymeria. Read that name in some book once and always liked it. Nan was a tough bitch."

"You have to adapt to survive a young heartbreak."

She nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I guess that's what I was doing. After he left, I had nowhere to go, so I went by a different name, cut my hair, and started working in an entry level job at a Northern law firm, taking calls for a man named Bolton." He wrote down the details and couldn't help but smile when she added, "That's an important name. Write that one down. He'll come back later."

Later. That tended to be a very promising word.

"The job didn't last too long though. I think he was beginning to recognize me after a few months, so I split, did it all over again."

"Changed your identity?"

A nod of affirmation gave him his answer. "As much as you can when you aren't even eighteen yet and can't really change your name even if you wanted to. Cat was next." She smiled wistfully. "After my mother."

"It's a pretty name."

She nodded again and lapsed into a brief silence before, "Yeah. I guess I never really gave up my past as much as I always wanted to. Cat and Beth weren't very different for me. Just a case of 'different city, different name'. Both times I was living on the street, eating when I could, sleeping even less, just wandering the streets at night. I learned about people doing that. Nobody's ever aware of just who's watching them."

Jaqen looked at her curiously. That was something most people didn't realize until an age much older than she could possibly be.

"And who are you now?"

She sighed and shook her head. "I don't know anymore. No one, I guess."

In that instant, he knew what it was that he was supposed to do. In three months, he needed to convince this girl of who she really was.

They only had two weeks left of their paid-for time together when he decided to make his move. It was after a half hour spent discussing the art of fencing that he finally changed the subject.

"There's still someone that you haven't told me about."

She looked surprised at the sudden shift in topic. "Hm?"

"Arya."

Her grey eyes regarded him carefully, and when she saw nothing but genuine curiosity and concern in the ones that met her gaze, she nodded. "Arya Stark."

Stark.

"Born the third of five children. Robb, Sansa, Arya, Brandon, and Rickon. Our parents were Eddard and Catelyn Stark. He was the best man I ever knew. Kind to everyone, always just. And mom...she loved us all so much. Sometimes I think it's better that she never saw what happened to us all."

Jaqen stayed quiet. She seemed ready to tell this story, so he wasn't about to interrupt.

"I guess Bran was the first. When I was eight, he fell out of the tree that Mom always told him not to climb and broke his spine. He's been paralyzed ever since. Dad came next. I was fourteen when he died. They said it was a work related accident, and I guess we all accepted that. The same year, Sansa started dating Joffrey Baratheon, the son of our father's best friend. We didn't see her much after that, and when we did, she was covered in bruises from "doorknobs, bedposts"...you name it. I wanted to kill the bastard. He got his comeuppance in the end.

"Two years later, Mom and Robb were killed in a car accident. On the way to his wedding. They were hardly a mile from the church when Roose Bolton t-boned them in an intersection. The asshole was more concerned about the scratch on his Porsche than the fact that he had killed two people."

Bolton. He remembered that name.

"When I went to work for him later, I had half a mind to kill him. I think I would've too if he hadn't started to realize who I was. I would've done it without a second thought, but I wasn't ready to serve the time for it, and I was afraid that if anyone discovered who I was it would be all too easy to connect me to him."

Jaqen nodded. The police would've had a field day with a case like that.

"After they died, that's when I really started running. Bran and Rickon disappeared into the foster care system, Sansa was trapped with Joffrey, and I had no one left. I met Gendry not long after, and maybe it was because I felt so alone that I fell in love with him. Either way, he was just the first stop in a long line of new identities. I haven't felt at home in my own skin since I was a kid."

"What about now?"

She raised her eyebrows. "What about it?"

"Haven't things come together for you? Think about it. Tell me about your family."

Her gaze was somewhat wary, but she did as he asked. "Sansa's married now. To the man who finally got her away from the abuse. They're expecting their second soon. Bran's living with them, just for now, while he gets his feet under him—metaphorically. Rickon..." She frowned. "We still don't know where he is. I think he had it even worse off than I did. But we'll find him. Soon."

A heavy silence fell over the room and it was just before the end of the hour that Jaqen spoke up again. "So tell me who you are."

Her gaze was blurry with tears when she met his and the smile on her lips is weak, but grateful. "I'm a Stark."

The two weeks that followed were spent making her realize what she still had left, and by their last session, she was animatedly telling him about the antics of her two year old niece Leana and how she seemed to be taking more after her father with every passing day, much to Sansa's exasperation.

When the hour was over, she stood with a wide, easy grin, and extended a hand for him to shake. "I know I've been difficult, to use your own words, but...thank you. I guess Sansa was right."

His smile was a little more bittersweet, but he shook her hand and accepted her thanks nevertheless. "You're welcome. I'm glad that I could help."

She nodded and was almost at the door when she hesitated and turned back, biting at her bottom lip and fiddling with the hem of her jacket. "Umm...so. I guess this means I'm not really your patient anymore, right?"

He raised his eyebrows and nodded, unsure of what she was getting at.

Her smile was shy and she looked down at her feet for a moment before meeting his gaze again. "I still haven't been to that Italian place down the street."

His eyes widened in realization before a wide smile bloomed across his features. "Neither have I."

She laughed in relief and nodded again. "So...7? Tonight?"

A teasing smile quirked at his lips. "Who's asking?"

Laughing again, she smiled at him broadly. "I, Arya Stark, am asking you, Jaqen H'ghar, on a date."

He couldn't remember the last time he had smiled quite so freely, and he nodded as she headed out the door. "With pleasure...Miss Stark."